Tattoo'd
by bendecida82
Summary: Challenge response: write about when Haley first fell in love with Nathan. Haley's thoughts as she gets number 23 tattoo'd on the small of her back- oneshot


A/N: Okay, doing all kinds of new things. Blame it on demeter18. :) This is a challenge response to writing about when Haley first fell in love with Nathan. My first Naley fic. It took forever to write cause I kept getting distracted rewatching the leyton scenes while I was rewatching the Naley ones, but I made it in time. I choose to write what she was thinking when she got the tattoo on her back.

Enjoy!

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Tattoo'd

Every girl dreams of the man they'll fall in love with. They imagine his smile, his hair color, the shape of his eyes, how tall he'd be. I never really thought about love, or relationships- too mature to have my musings revolve around the opposite sex like the other girls at school. More concerned with inward characteristics than outward trappings, I was content to wait to find love in college, where the future love of my life would be mature and sensitive, an intellectual who would appreciate my love of the classics, and share my pursuit of academic success.

Who knew that in my junior year I would fall in love with an arrogant, immature, self-centered jerk who's idea of classic ran more towards cars and beer than books and music?

Would I have began tutoring him had I known that this was where I'd be, in love with a boy I wasn't even sure loved me back, a boy who, most days, his flaws outweighed his more redeeming qualities? If I had known Id be skipping school, getting drunk, and now, permanently marking my body, would I have just told Lucas to man up and deal with Nathan on his own, keeping myself safe from this rollercoaster of emotion for a boy that I loved, but some days wasn't sure I liked?

I guess it surprises no one more than myself that the answer to that question would be a resounding yes. Loving him is enough in and of itself. The emotion I have inside of me for him is so powerful, the fact that I was blessed enough to experience it is worth the knowledge that it may not last.

Thinking back on our time together, I wondered when the warmth in the pit of my stomach stopped being from tutoring and started being from him- listening to him open up to me in a way I knew he didn't with anyone else, just being present in his space. But then I realize it doesn't matter when it did, just that it did.

Just like the bracelet I stared at every night before I went to bed, and fingered in class unconsciously; a cracker jack prize probably worth 25 cents from a gumball machine, and I couldn't find it in me to take it off, because he gave it to me. Never mind that he probably hadn't thought twice about it since he pulled it from the box and realized it wasn't a baseball card, but something unexpected.

He wasn't the only one who got something unexpected.

He makes me feel alive, daring, worthy. I feel so much for this boy who has everything, and doesn't realize he has nothing. And what makes it so sad is, I think sometimes he realizes it too.

There are moments of exhilaration, times when I experience what I always imagined other girls take as commonplace: stolen kisses in empty classrooms, a casual arm around the shoulder, smoldering glances during history class. But there are those moments of quiet peace that I wonder if anyone else savors, times when instead of a kiss, he pulls me into a hug and buries his face in my neck as if to hide from the world. Times where the words spill haltingly from his mouth as he confesses that his world is not a dream come true, but a nightmare from which he can't escape.

Im not naïve enough to think that it'll last. The most popular jock with the unknown brainiac? But I do know that for a moment, he was mine, and I was his. I was his safe haven, the place where he could just be Nathan, and not the Scott boy, and not number 23, the basketball maverick. Maybe I could be that for him because none of those things really mattered to me, nothing but the person I saw in his eyes, struggling to emerge behind the careless façade that served as his defense, and his protection, from a world that took too much from him without giving anything back.

And if the memories are all I have when it's over, I'll be okay with that. Because for a moment in time, my love was the greatest gift I could give the one I loved.

Maybe it wont last. But at this moment, when he turns to me above all others, when he pulls me close and whispers things he's never told another living soul, when he gets solace from my embrace, its enough.

Every bite of the needle is a memory branded in my heart, every bit as permanent as the ink on my back. As the number twenty three becomes etched into my skin for all time, so does the certainty that there was once a moment when I loved, purely, freely, completely, and it's a feeling I hope to never forget.

I'm in love with a boy I'm not sure loves me back, but I don't regret a moment. My love has changed him, and loving him has changed me. And no matter how it ends, I cant help but believe its for the better.

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Alright, what'd you guys think? Naley fans, did I capture Haley okay? Feel free to give constructive criticism. This is not a couple I write about, though I love them.


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